back to the u.s. election now with a look at the candidates from the perspective of the outside world. well to discuss america's challenges on the foreign front i'm joined live by a british politician and former m.p. . he's there in london shutting down guantanamo bay was among the broken promises

of president obama today is still open for business and the president even has the power to assassinate anyone at will so how can voters trust him if he doesn't stick to his words. obama has done some very good things but as you rightly point out this isn't one of them i suspect that the president wanted to shut it down but there must have been sufficient momentum. to overpower his position and i think he would like to think he'd at least admit this is one of the aspirations he hasn't achieved but the bigger question that you also because if i won i think on the whole you have to make these judgment calls and i think that obama has done a pretty good job he's been more than just lucky with the economy he does seem to state it in a better direction and for example the united kingdom and internationally i think that he's more of a peacemaker than a wall maker not to me is very important what about mitt romney could he be better at keeping his campaign promises. he's made some very heavy claims and in my judgment it's not achievable but he has said because obama hasn't deliberately made

mistakes he hasn't deliberately presided over some wobbles in the economy and that kind of thing and so when wrongly makes these very strong promises were he to get elected it's likely that he would only do a four year term because in a sense he set the bar higher for him off than obama did four years ago and so it would be a one hit wonder situation. in these judgment calls i would tend to support obama anyway but the object of position i would say is that the bomber has probably been actually more cautious than mitt romney but i understand this problem is he's desperate to win israeli prime minister benjamin netanyahu he's not supporting obama he's openly hoping that mitt romney will take the presidency what why is he so worried about obama staying in power. i'm not so sure that he's worried about obama's stay in power but if you look at the kind of comments that mitt romney has made both in the united states and in israel and to israel directly he's got

a very very strong pro israeli agenda and so obviously israel is pragmatic as a country and it says well mitt if you really can deliver what you're saying then will vote for you and that's what's going on there of course the other thing is that obama has had four years of experience and four years of a record which shows what a president really can do in the united states once again i suggest that mitt's slightly over promised to israel especially at a time of economic hardship because does the american people really want to spend that much money there i doubt it more in foreign policy syrian rebels they're betting on romney to what was the. more difficult one to call i think mitt romney's talked a very strong talk internationally he has got the idea of america being great again and it seems to me that he wants america to flex a very strong military muscle as well now in my opinion one reason i tend to support obama more risk because as i said before he's kind of a peace maker he doesn't really want to have for example between russia and america

very important condition there and also between china and america whereas mitt romney says we can be proud again that's a very popular story in the united states where i used to work in fact but once again can you deliver that or is it just rhetoric and i guess we'll know in about six hours what the american people believe you're there in london what you think the u.k. people think about this a lot of excitement over the election but being the one who's best best for the u.k. . the truth is that most people in the u.k. are fairly neutral about the american elections those of us to spend our time in interviews like this and following these things closely are two different positions the conservative minded people would tend to support mitt romney and of course the more liberal minded people and perhaps more left leaning people would tend to support obama if you were to say which is better as you asked for the. u.k. i would suspect it's probably obama actually because mitt romney seems to be talking about almost a fortress america and that never plays well when it comes to being

a junior partner as the united kingdom has been on a number of occasions the last twenty years now but thank you very much for your thoughts joining us live right here thank you well in the next hour here our t's washington studio takes over extensive coverage of the u.s. election and here's lauren lister with a short preview. in just a few minutes we're going to take over the airwaves here in washington to bring you in-depth coverage of the issues that really matter in this presidential election many of which are overlooked by other mainstream media outlets the issues that matter to a global audience the u.s. economy foreign policy and the candidates on the ballot ability to deal with these issues over the next four years candidates not just rock obama or mitt romney the ones you hear so much about but third party candidates guess what several are on the ballots across this country and we'll talk to some of them joel stein of the green party will be on their show coming up so will rocky anderson of the justice

party candidates trying to bring change new voices to what's a two party political system dominated by democrats and republicans they have solutions of their own that so often get overlooked we'll dig deep into their race and their policies and so much more coming up in just a few minutes will take over until all of the results are in late tonight. the six america votes for its next president. take the wheels to us drive. get the news the mainstream this is with close next. week u.s. election. dot com. well those americans busy queuing up to choose the next president who will be running the biggest economy in the world the economy the moment of course making estimates on the financial cost to all of the presidential campaigns and to hear from business

is here to tell us more about that obscene amount of money spent on these elections absolutely. and i think anyone would go along with we're now nearing two billion dollars it really is crazy i'm going to actually allies think in the business bulletin stay with us ok. to business thank you for joining us in the financial costs of the u.s. presidential campaigns that set two billion dollars i say so with details i'm joined by a re not going to. say in these times of economic hardship how can these amounts of money be justified arena well we can leave that decision up to our viewers but consider this in a country which has a one point three trillion dollars trillion dollar debt and the election costs around a billion dollars really does it matter or is it just a drop in the ocean let's compare it to let's compare the u.s.

elections to the cost of a democracy if you will in other countries for almost fifty million dollars the election costs in the u.k. just under three hundred million in canada and then there's the whopping two billion dollars for the u.s. presidential elections in total the company for the congressional and presidential elections runs just under six billion dollars right now and that is my friends a new record for the united states they actually beat the old record which was set just four years ago by seven percent and if we go all the way back to the beginning of the century in the year two thousand the election campaign cost total action campaign for the congress and the president ran just over three billion dollars so inflation or just missed spending of course will have to leave that to the financial analysts to decide we are talking about exuberance amounts of money. a little bit more leader in detail where the money's coming from but you have to

understand that millions alone just i think republicans have spent more than five hundred million dollars on that. or of course they're kind of the candidate of choice mitt romney you have to remember that a lot of the money was spent on negative ad. which war prevail and in the closing stages of the election so all the negativity also comes at a price apparently and who is paying that price will get to that in just a second yeah reno i want to know where this money coming from well of course a lot of it is coming from the contributors of course you have to keep in mind that mitt romney for one is a very rich man but most of the money for the campaign for the presidential campaign comes from contributors from the donors traditionally big business tends to support the republicans by the romney being a businessman himself obviously he can rely on other big businessmen to support him as well president obama not so much he's actually been if you can see he's

a favorite with the more glamorous or the more brilliant type of people the hollywood really likes and so a lot of the money of course is coming from a lot of the money for the complete is the sole cold dark money that money is coming from sources which are not disclosed and they're not financing the candidates per se they're just giving essentially money to whatever cause they decide is the best cause that in this case it happens to be the presidential elections and again we have to keep in mind that more than one hundred seventy million dollars worse spent by known donors on this presidential campaign again a huge amount of money nobody knows whom by case and no one knows who they are what are they going to war in return for these billions exactly you can expect some sort of you know goods and services to be brought to these people who have donated this money from whoever happens to be the next president of the united states of america

and of course that means that these companies these organizations or political action committees they are the ones really running the election it means that if they have paid for the candidates to make it through and become the win there then they will probably expect that they are into. this will be the ones that will be observed and will be catered to by the future president ok thank you very much indeed for that i'm going to crack on with the markets and see what's happening over on wall street now because the stocks are actually trading higher still holding on to those days in the us despite the fact that investors are reluctant to make any moves the european markets also gains and that was for the day in the fall so that is the crucial greek vote. tomorrow that stoop to the next traunch to avoid bankruptcy that's the big question at the forefront of investors' minds tomorrow to see how the euro is reacting to all of that and it's

much into gave a fraction so you can see that although germany is calm us bank expect the bank to remain pressured until or indeed if greece gets saved by their donor countries so we'll leave on to the russian markets than to see what happened that. we did we had gains as well and modest after a three day long holiday the trading volumes once again will go and investors are waiting for the results of the u.s. elections of course now as we've just witnessed tuesday's trading was basically overshadowed by the u.s. elections out fair to say by angus campbell says global investors don't actually favor any particular. well the feeling that i get is the wall street would rather see romney very true there but certainly from a vest if obama gets remains president then that could be seen as positive for the markets over the longer term period because it's most likely that ben bernanke will remain the federal reserve chairman and will possibly

stimulate further with more quantitative easing in terms of a romney victory then much too could potentially be seen as opposed to for markets because he's all about lower taxes stimulating the economy by other means and of course republicans historically have seen good rallies in the stock markets whenever they've been very today and. meanwhile everything is certainly not all bright and breezy for the u.s. economy as the country faces a fiscal cliff take it now from morgan stanley explained. the first thing in the in try that whoever the president will be is going to face is this thing called the fiscal cliff which is a five percent of g.d.p. tightening of fiscal policy which is written into legislation in the budget arithmetic next year when the bush era tax cuts retire and you get some automatic reductions in spending as a result of previous agreements coming through so the next president will have to

decide what to do about the fiscal cliff and fear of that fiscal cliff is already slowing investment and economic activity in america is a bunch of scenarios here i mean but basically if you get the full five percent of g.d.p. type thing imagine you go from having a you know what eight percent deficit to three percent deficit means cutting expenditure on raising taxes by five percent of g.d.p. that's a huge impact and that's going to slow the economy right down that's going to push it into recession this is an economy that's weak that's only growing at two percent a year and so a five percent tightening would push us into a global recession because i think if america slows down that will trigger a slowdown worldwide and that will have an effect on russia through the oil price and other other channels of contagion there's a very wide range of options out there and we won't get any clarity until i'm afraid probably into the new year. and day that i thought of is this thing now stay with us here and i'll see that we've got plenty of money.

in japan the average height for men is one hundred eighty two centimeters ten centimeters shorter because of that some employers refused to hire me one of them even told me directly that i was too short to deal with the clients could you just already spend three months in this hospital and plans to stay for another four to add the coveted seven santa maters to his stature invented by the famed soviet orthopedic is good for you is there a from the nine hundred fifty s. these frames were initially used to treat fractures in deformities by cutting bones and slowly pulling them apart and therefore stimulating tissue regeneration it was out of was able to receive arms and legs and people who thought they were crippled for life be sent to the other patients and in many cases their shattered lives will go when professor of design his first frame using bicycle parts sixty years later

says invention is increasingly being used to help people who are eager to fracture their legs to become a few centimeters taller than the ultimate goal is still the same fixing somebodies lives both literally and figuratively about a third of patients admitted to be was out of center now days seeking syringe refocus medical reasons most of them a man and most are not what you would call vertically challenged professor novick of who operated on many of them says it usually comes down to a man's pride some of the first patient to turn to us with a leg length in the request to meet his fifteen centimeters to be still want to surgery because panos to than him we like to say that we need to break their legs in order to fix their head maybe nothing wrong with them from an orthopedic point of view but there is something psychological that prevents them from living their lives fully being happy and we fix it like lengthening surgeries are banned in many

countries and even the out there press. expansive in russia the entire course costs eleven thousand dollars about one tenth of the similar package in the united states financial considerations for one of the reasons that brought this washington state native to western siberia his main motive for the surgery had to do with how he fared in the others in america advertised as one seventy five i was one sixty seven or one sixty eight and so one eight centimeters would have brought me right to average users wanted to be average for women height isn't so important you know i think girl can be short and it's not a big deal like your guy is like expected to be taller just before the operation most this matter a russian girl who found he's a regional hype quite endearing yet he still want to have had the surgery adding seven more centimeters to he self-confidence she told me the whole time you're

crazy you're normal you're perfect. so now or so they call you so what a compliment for somebody who's used to falling short of his own expectations. greece has been brought to a standstill by general strikes in the second day of what's being called devil's week it's a week of public action in protest of the new austerity package about to be voted on by parliament. is in the center of athens. well the forty eight hour general strike is well and truly underway here in greece and we seems thousands of people coming out onto the streets of athens to voice their anger against the latest round of austerity measures that's being put forward by prime ministers some maurice now that will be voted on in parliament on whedon's day it's around says seem point

five billion euros worth of savings those savings taking the form of of budget cuts also of tax rises also we expect to see the the age of retirement rice and pensions cuts all of these things angering the people of greece and seeing them out on the streets to demonstrate against it now it's more than likely that that latest round of austerity measures will be passed one of the reasons why it will be passed is because if greece doesn't pass it then they're not going to get the next round of bailout money that they need so very much now that's just over thirty one billion euros worth of bailout money and they've been told by the three main creditors that they have to slash more from the deficit they have to make more savings and this is why they've they've put forward this this nativist package for thirteen point five billion euros worth of savings and it's not expected to be an

easy thing no as they say it should pass but it should be a very tight vote in the parliament and not leaves people wondering is well even if this does pass will it be enough politicians on site in order to implement these latest savings. and prime minister antonis samaras has promised the greek people that this will be the final round of austerity cuts however to satiric electorate the university. he thinks that is highly unlikely. every a sturdy package in the past two and a half years was supposed to be the last one so no it's won't be the last austerity achatz we're going to see more of it and overload it's been happening today and tomorrow in parliament is something very close to a parliamentary could that. you know very rapid way it will just one day two days of discussion you're going to pass i should feel that there's not only includes budget cuts all changes in the pension system and that wage system or a large segments of the public sector it would also affect aspects.

of taxation so this is it's not hunger in a way we want it we're very far from you know democratic procedure is this is a set of measures that have been actually dictated by the troika and it's just going to be passed repugnant without any absolutes ghassan billions of dollars are at stake for the british prime minister in a low key home sales tour to the gulf states david cameron's aiming to sell around one hundred typhoon fighter jets to clients with controversial records on human rights straight research about to be placed police the potential to use or against british law. well certainly the revelation of cameron. country to its normal form is only taken one camera man with him certainly does raise questions and certainly there are cameras should be embarrassed about sacked if he's in the middle east right now what we're seeing is that the interests of international arms companies appear to be trumping british laws and british values

when it comes to upholding human rights. that cameron has publicly aligned himself with the arab spring movements he's going to great efforts as we can see to sell arms to the very same oppressive regimes that the arab spring was opposed to fundamentally promoting arms sales to these countries undermines what regulations u.k. does have on controlling arms exports these deals have been in extra could be linked to corruption in the past indeed yeah i'm an arms dealer to saudi arabia one of the countries in question is arguably the most corrupt transaction in the history of mankind president let me put in a second russia's defense minister over a corruption scandal a criminal investigation has been launched into allegations of embezzlement surrounding the ministry which could end up costing around one hundred million dollars r.t. shaun thomas earlier explained all the details of the case to me. we have and bezel

and scandal corruption at the ministry level this change comes from a scandal basically with the defense ministry selling off assets at an undervalued rate to companies that are affiliated with that defense ministry and that corruption costing the russian federal government about one hundred million u.s. dollars in terms of damage to that budget so this change is basically to take on the telly surgical of who is the defense minister remove him from the ministry replace him with. all of this wrapped up in today's decision right tell us more about himself and also tell us a bit about his successor he's taking over here certainly it will anatoly sort of the first civilian to ever hold the position of defense ministry here in russia he was actually charged with bringing needed reforms to the russian military machine and he successfully did so in fact he has been praised for doing so and then we have. who is the former emergencies minister very popular held that position for

eighteen years then recently most recently has been the governor of the moscow region and he's been very popular in fact of let me put putting his confidence behind saying that he might just be the right man to be able to clean up this mess that the defense ministry now this is corruption at the highest levels of the russian government so why is this being targeted what is this perhaps a sign that corruption which is of course has been a major problem in this country for many years is now being addressed well that is certainly one of the stated goals of the blood in your putin administration in his predecessor dmitri medvedev as well and so on the surface it looks like this might be the case but if you look there's not very many faces of united russia out there in fact. is one of the well known faces in him moving from this position leaves a vacancy for almost a full year to come in the in the region of who's going to be the governor so it looks like on the surface tackling corruption but how many people. out there to actually be a part of this push to attack. that's it for me in the news team here in moscow

just a couple of minutes all of these washington studio will take over for extensive coverage of the u.s. presidential election there stay with us for that. which is slow often enough and knows that to ride a horse you've got to catch it first. for him it's a daily routine that your software's of course are on the island of a horn at the heart of. his life on an isolated farm is about blue sky green grass and his horses were there sometimes he gets lonely here but horses have become part of me now i've fallen off so many times sometimes. it's part of my

every day life. i home suburban home to a rats local just laugh for centuries most still live off the land of cattle and fish . and i call is often called the pearl of siberia a horn is said to be the pearl of by. it's a land of think forests. and vast stops. virtually undiscovered by tourists until some twenty years ago i was cornish quickly become a magnet for nature lovers and curial seekers you're quite some way from civilization here accommodation on the island is very basic so you can forget about a t.v. or even run in water for most people a tent is the on the air. but for those who come here it's exactly what they're

looking for. and journeyed to by coal can be a trip of a lifetime and the locals say once you've seen it they'll be coming back again and again. wealthy british style the stock. market why not. find out what's really happening to the global economy with mike stronger for a no holds barred look at the global financial headlines tune into cars

a report. more news today violence is once again flared up. in these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations are today.

please speak your language. programs in documentaries in arabic in school here on. reporting from the world talks about seventy ip interviews intriguing story. and try. to find out more visit our big.